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Is a future where AI replaces most human labor rendered impossible by the following consideration: -- In such a future, people will have minimal income (possib
by VikRubenfeld 1y ago
Is a future where AI replaces most human labor rendered impossible by the following consideration:
-- In such a future, people will have minimal income (possibly some UBI) and therefore there will be few who can afford the products and services generated by AI
-- Therefore the AI generates greatly reduced wealth
-- Therefore there’s greatly reduced wealth to pay for the AI
-- …rendering such a future impossible
- heavyset_go 1y agoThe problem with this calculus is that the AI exists to benefit their owners, the economy itself doesn't really matter, it's just the fastest path to getting what owners want for the time being.
- Udo 1y agoExactly. And as implied by the term techno-feudalism, the owners are okay with a greatly reduced economy, and in some cases a severe reduction in quality of life overall, as long as they end up ruling over what's left.
- zaptrem 1y agoAlternatively: -- In such a future, people will have minimal income (possibly some UBI) and therefore there will be few who can afford the products and services generated by AI -- Corporate profits drop (or growth slows) and there is demand from the powers that be to increase taxation in order to increase the UBI. -- People can afford the products and services. Unfortunately, with no jobs the products and services could become exclusively entertainment-related.
- atomicnumber3 1y ago>exclusively entertainment related We may find that, if our baser needs are so easily come by that we have tremendous free time, much of the world is instead pursuing things like the sciences or arts instead of continuing to try to cosplay 20th century capitalism. Why are we all doing this? By this, I mean, gestures at everything this? About 80% of us will say, so that we don't starve, and can then amuse ourselves however it pleases us in the meantime. 19% will say because they enjoy being impactful or some similar corporate bullshit that will elicit eyerolls. And 1% do it simply because they enjoy holding power over other people and management in the workplace provides a source of that in a semi-legal way. So the 80% of people will adapt quite well to a post-scarcity world. 19% will require therapy. And 1% will fight tooth and nail to not have us get there.
- zaptrem 1y agoI hope there's still some sciencing left we can do better than the AI because I start to lose it after playing games/watching tv/doing nothing productive for >1 week.
- idiotsecant 1y agoYou don't think that a post scarcity world would provide opportunities to wield power over others? People will always build heirarchy, we're wired for it.
- likium 1y agoAgreed. In that world, fame and power becomes more important since wealth no longer matters.
- amarait 1y agoDoesnt this already happen with social media, tv personas etc. Its so empty
- foxglacier 1y agoThis is something that pisses me off about anti-capitalists. They talk as if money is the most important thing and want us to all be equal with money, but they implicitly want inequality in other even more important areas like social status. Capitalism at least provides an alternative route to social status instead of just politics, making it available to more people, not less.
- hakfoo 1y agoThere are plenty of non-political routes to social status. Ask how many of your neighbours can name three Supreme Court justices (or hell, their senators and representative) versus who can name three Khardashian sisters? TBH, I'd hope for the end of "broad" social status. I'd love to see a retreat towards smaller circles where status is earned through displays of talent and respectable deeds, not just by dominating/manufacturing/buying a media presence.
- VikRubenfeld 1y agoLet's say AI gets so good that it is better than people at most jobs. How can that economy work? If people aren't working, they aren't making money. If they don't have money, they can't pay for the goods and services produced by AI workers. So then there's no need for AI workers. UBI can't fix it because a) it won't be enough to drive our whole economy, and b) it amounts to businesses paying customers to buy their products, which makes no sense.
- idiotsecant 1y agoWhy does there have to be a need for AI? Once an AI has the means the collect its own resources the opinions of humans regarding its market utility become somewhat less important.
- kadushka 1y agoSo then there's no need for AI workers. You got this backwards - there won’t be need for humans outside of the elite class. 0.1% or 0.01% of mankind will control all the resources. They will also control robots with guns. Less than 100 years ago we had a guy who convinced a small group of Germans to seize power and try to exterminate or enslave vast majority of humans on Earth - just because he felt they were inferior. Imagine if he had superhuman AI at his disposal. In the next 50 years we will have different factions within elites fighting for power, without any regard for wellbeing of lower class, who will probably be contained in fully automated ghettos. It could get really dark really fast.
- Kaibeezy 1y agoThis is ringing a bell. I need to re-read The Diamond Age… or maybe re-watch Elysium… or Soylent Green… or…
- VikRubenfeld 1y ago>> So then there's no need for AI workers. > You got this backwards - there won’t be need for humans outside of the elite class. 0.1% or 0.01% of mankind will control all the resources. Let me rephrase that from 'So then there's no need for AI workers.' to 'So then there's no money to pay for AI workers.' The UBI approach creates a closed economic loop: Company A pays taxes → Government gives UBI to consumers → Consumers buy from Company A → Company A pays taxes... This is functionally identical to Company A directly paying people to buy Company A's products, which makes no economic sense. It's like Ford paying his workers $50/day, but the only customers buying Ford cars are Ford workers spending their $50/day wages. Ford would go bankrupt - there's no external value creation, just money circulating in circles. Where does the actual wealth come from in this system? Who are the net buyers that make the businesses profitable enough to sustain the UBI taxes? UBI in an AI-dominated economy can't create a functioning economy - it's just an imaginary self-licking ice cream cone.
- heavyset_go 1y agoThe most likely scenario is that everyone but those who own AI starves, and the ones who remain around are allowed to exist because powerful psychopaths still desire literal slaves to lord over, someone to have sex with and to someone to hurt/hunt/etc. I like your optimism, though.
- int_19h 1y agoPeople who are about to starve tend to revolt.
- mrob 1y agoIf you can build an AGI then a few billion autonomous exploding drones is no great difficulty.
- int_19h 1y agoThat doesn't really follow.
- mrob 1y agoAGI means you win the economy. Even if it's only John von Neumann level and not ASI (which removes the economy entirely), a version of von Neumann that can clone himself and never sleeps is surely capable of organizing an automated killer drone factory of sufficient size to remove as many humans as you like.
- int_19h 1y agoAGI just means that it can replace a human at any task - a single human. You still have compute as the bound on how many instances you can run, but even if those numbers are in the millions, the resources aren't going to magically come out of nowhere, either.
- heavyset_go 1y agoHalf of them will vote to starve themselves so they can watch the other half starve, too. I genuinely wish what you speak of happens should reality play out that way, but I think a lot of people will die with shit eating grins on their faces, even after they run out of shit to eat, because it means someone with blue hair is starving, too.
- petermcneeley 1y agoThis a late 20th century myopic view of the economy. In the ages and the places long before, most of human toil was enjoyed by a tiny elite. Also "rendering such a future impossible". This is a retrocausal way of thinking. As though an a bad event in the future makes that future impossible.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago> This a late 20th century myopic view of the economy. In the ages and the places long before, most of human toil was enjoyed by a tiny elite. And overall wealth levels were much lower. It was the expansion of consumption to the masses that drove the enormous increase in wealth that those of us in "developed" countries now live with and enjoy.
- baobun 1y agoIt was also due to colonialism, slavery, and unjust wars, among many other things. Doesn't mean we should continue with the old ways. Some kinds of growth are beneficial in a phase but not sustainable over time. Like the baby hamster.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago> Doesn't mean we should continue with the old ways. The GP was claiming that it is "20th century myopic" to not notice that in the past the products of most human toil went mostly to a small elite. My very point was that that old way of doing things didn't generate much wealth, not that the way things have changed is all good. I'm not advocating for any of the old ways, I'm saying that having an economic system that brings benefits to all is an important component of growing the overall wealth of a society (and of humanity overall).
- petermcneeley 1y agoYes but it should be clear that an economy composed of elite producing for themselves and other elite is totally possible.
- Davidzheng 1y agono the AI doesn't actually need to interact with world economy it just needs to be capable of self-substence by providing energy and material usage. But when AI takes off completely it can vertically integrate with the supply of energy and material. wealth is not a thing in itself, it's a representation of value and purchasing power. It will create its own economy when it is able to mine material and automate energy generation.
- greenavocado 1y agoYou aren't seeing the end goal clearly enough. The end goal is to ensure the survival of a small group of technocrats that control all production on Earth due to the force multiplier effect of technological advancements. This necessitates the depopulation of Earth.
- edg5000 1y agoIf I may speculate the opposite: With cost-effective energy and a plateau in AI development, the per-unit cost of an hour of AI compute will be very low, however, the moat remains massive. So a very large amount of people will only be able to function (work) with an AI subscription, concentrating power to those who own AI infra. It will be hard for anybody to break that moat.
- palmfacehn 1y agoYour first premise has issues: >In such a future, people will have minimal income (possibly some UBI) and therefore there will be few who can afford the products and services generated by AI Productivity increases make products cheaper. To the extent that your hypothetical AI manufacturer can produce widgets with less human labor, it only makes sense to do so where it would reduce overall costs. By reducing cost, the manufacturer can provide more value at a lower cost to the consumer. Increased productivity means greater leisure time. Alternatively, that time can be applied to solving new problems and producing novel products. New opportunities are unlocked by the availability of labor, which allows for greater specialization, which in-turn unlocks greater productivity and the flywheel of human ingenuity continues to accelerate. The item of UBI is another thorny issue. This may inflate the overall supply of currency and distribute it via political means. If the inflation of the money supply outpaces the productivity gains, then prices will not fall. Instead of having the gains of productivity allocated by the market to consumers, those with political connections will be first to benefit as per Cantilion effects. Under the worst case scenario this might include distribution of UBI via social credit scores or other dystopian ratings. However, even under what advocates might call the ideal scenario, capital flows would still be dictated by large government sector or public private partnership projects. We see this today with central bank flows directly influencing Wall St. valuations.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago> Increased productivity means greater leisure time. Productivity has been increasing steadily for decades. Do you see any evidence that leisure time has tracked it? IMO what will actually happen is feudal stasis after a huge die-off. There will be no market for new products and no ruling class interest in solving new problems. If this sounds far-fetched, consider that this we can see this happening already. This is exactly the ideal world of the Trump administration and its backers. They have literally slashed funding for public health, R&D, and education. And what's the response? Thiel, Zuckererg, Bezos, and Altman haven't said a word against the most catastrophic reversal of public science policy since Galileo and the Inquisition. Musk is pissed because he's been sidelined, but he was personally involved, through DOGE, in cutting funding to NASA and NOAA. So what will AI be used for? Clearly the goal is to replace most of the working population. And then what? One clue is that Musk cares so much about free speech and public debate he's trying to retrain Grok to be less liberal. None of them - not one - seem even remotely interested in funding new physics, cancer research, abundant clean energy, or any other genuinely novel boundary-breaking application of AI, or science in general. They have the money, they're not doing it. Why? The focus is entirely on building a nostalgic 1950s world with rockets, robots, apartheid, corporate sovereignty, and ideological management of information and belief. And that includes AI as a tool for enforcing business-as-usual, not as a tool for anything dangerous, original, or unruly which threatens their political and economic status.
- tsunamifury 1y agoWealth will be replaced by direct power. We do not need an economy. Most don’t seem to comprehend why the economy is being destroyed by the ultra rich